Cyclonus' partner Nightstick in Universe 2.0 was labeled as a Mini-con, so it's totally relevant.

Except there wasn't really any concept of soul in the Marvel comic OR in Sunbow. The closest we came was when they introduced Starscream's Ghost, and that was after they changed the concepts of life and death with the movie in the first place. Which also begs the question of how they were able to pull Optimus' "spark" back in if it existed in the first place. It all blows up from that point.

 

How is that relevant? The 2008 version and "Challenge at Cybertron" version don't even give him a label at all, he's simply referred to by his name on those boxes. And it's not like the Universe 2.0 toys had much in the way of a story, let alone ever used the terms Mini-Con and Nebulon interchangeably. None of the Universe toy bios even mentions Nightstick to know any actual background on him.

Not to mention by 2010, when the set you're talking about came out, Hasbro was shifting the meaning of Mini-Con to be more broad, applying to all of the smaller partner figures. I recall Soundwave's cassetticons were labeled as Mini-Cons at the time as well. They seem to have gone back on that, especially with Power of the Prime's line having the "Prime Masters" instead of either Mini-Cons or Nebulons filling the same role.

Yet, it's remarkable that G1 did establish the concept of a lasercore with which the robot "dies" if it is "extinguished". It may not have been established as a soul at the time, but that's exactly how a spark works. And to be honest, G1 was never exactly all that consistent with how new characters were born, or reborn as the case may be, with some characters simply built/rebuilt, while others had to be given life by some external source.

 

I'm still of the mindset that G1 didn't have "sparks".

 

And you'd be correct. One of the rubs I have with the Shout! Factory subs of Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory is that they slip in IDW terms and references, such as Phase Six Decepticon and things like Sparks.

As far as @Sparky Prime and his post: I don't care. I'll put it that way. It's really nice that you can mentally connect two disparate concepts and string them together to make canon mesh in a way that was never intended and breaks down with the least amount of thought possible, but I don't care. Until you can somehow go back in time and get the series redubbed or the Marvel run edited to include any reference to Sparks, then I don't care and I refuse to accept that they are part of those continuities.


And you are wrong, the 2008 Cyclonus packaging, which IS the Universe 2.0 packaging for those keeping track, DID INDEED have Nightstick listed as a Mini-con. Of course he isn't, but if we're applying every retcon that package issues cause then we should stay consistent.

 

I think there’s a fine line between discontinuity and company error. It seems pretty well established that Hasbro didn’t really have any idea where they wanted to go with the TF mythos when they created the idea in 83. And it seems a little dumb to be narrow-minded enough to accept every production mistake as a canon difference. Hasbro obviously retconned sparks into the G1 canon, at least the Sunbow cartoon canon, and they seemed to have decided on a path by the time they got to Beast Wars but their earlier mistakes in writing left some holes in the tapestry they weaved, which they were unable to go back and fix because we don’t have time travel. Now obviously that’s all just my opinion.

Tl;dr: canon only goes so far and a lot of discrepancies can and should be (imo) chalked up to production error on Hasbro’s part.

 

ive always considered it in his lower abs or waist

 

Company error? I wouldn't say it was company error, it was someone writing their own thing and fans making a correlation that wasn't there. Further down the line more fiction adopted said concepts as they went along, and the fans take it for granted that it's as engrained into the mythos as solidly as if it had started that way. The trouble is that it didn't. Period. No amount of headcanon or other such nonsense will change that.

And that seems like a crass and condescending comment to make.

When we are discussing opinion, then, we will come back to that. Right now we are discussing facts. "I feel" is completely irrelevant. Showing me ANY published work that says "Apply this to EVERYTHING" would shut me up on it.

 

Agreed, I crossed a line. I apologize.

But this seems to be going nowhere.

 

Laser cores got a single mention (cartoon) that’s not much in the way of established,

On the rest I pretty much agree with you

I didn’t like that either

But I think that’s far different then the spark issue. And I don’t feel “.time travel” is need here

A) As you pointed out yourself, the laser core concept and sparks are rather similar

B)the 86 film early scripts had mention of “sparks” by name

C)the cartoon did imply to a degree that transformers had some level of what could be called a soul

D)Marvel did In Fact include a reference to Sparks

Again, what you call a retcon just seems to be more of an expanding and renaming of the laser core concept then a true retcon

 

This is exactly how I feel about trying to force Beast Wars into G1 canon (and vice versa), in another ongoing thread right now.

Transformers has a lot of self-contained "reimagined" worlds -- even though I often say the constant reinvesting the same wheel is what hurts it. But trying to retcon past worlds is actually worse. Transformers is a multiverse, the end. And some of us dislike the other worlds, such as those with "sparks". I just wish Transformers would have a DC/Marvel like collapse of this nonsense, some sort of reckoning/Crisis, and introduce new characters/leaders, just as DC/Marvel has done. Quit giving us Prime vs. Megatron, Bee + Starscream, ad nauseam.

Some retconning is very tenuous at best, utter fanboy nonsense at worst.

 

"Disparate concepts"? Like @Primeultra said, there's no time travel required and you pointed out yourself that a lasercore is a similar concept. And as I'd said, Hasbro has used the term interchangeably with spark. Not to mention, the everything else Primeultra pointed out. Although I'd say the references to sparks in the Marvel comics were meant to be metaphorical at the time, but still, those references just as easily could be interpreted literally at this point. The idea may not have been fleshed out in G1, but similar concepts were there. And either way, Beast Wars still established G1 characters having sparks, and has been a mainstay across continuities ever since. If you choose not to care and refuse to accept its a part of those continuities, that's fine, but that's your own opinion/headcanon.

You might want to check that again, because I'm not wrong. "Mini-Con" does not appear on the 2008 packaging anywhere. All it says on the front is "Nightstick Included!" and on the back "Nightstick becomes laser cannon!". That's it. Only the 2010 "Battle In Space" 2-pack refers to Nightstick as a Mini-Con, and as I'd said, Universe really doesn't have much in terms of story. For all we know that version of Nightstick is supposed to be Cybertronian. The box doesn't tell us anything about him. If you want to stay consistent, you're going to have to find a better example that has some actual context to go off of.

 

What about blaster though?

 

It could’ve been metaphorical, but in my eyes that would make the reference a little too coincidental and I’m not a big believer in coincidences

From what I recall of the “spark concept” from the early drafts of the 86 film: they were basically the “souls” of dead decepticons in the hall of heroes, that Unicron used to make the new decepticons

And Cyclonus is one of those decepticons, and he’s the best be that mentions the spark comment in the marvel run

To me it’s obvious the writer was aware of the early script drafts concept about a spark

 

Possibly as a decoy. If someone were gunning to destroy the Matrix, its possible they'd be fooled by the destruction of Prime's spark chamber instead. Does seem like something Optimus would do.